This seat has Sprung!

As promised, today I will provide sketches of the upholstery methods of both seats; the blog chair with webbing, springs, fabric and padding plus the Chippendale Plate chair with the same materials minus the springs.

Here’s the construction of the blog chair. 

                          Illustration by the Author

The springs rest on woven strips of fabric called webbing which are stretched across the bottom of the seat frame. The springs are hand sewn to the webbing.  The springs are further held in place by being tied together by twine at the top.  Both the webbing and the twine are secured to the chair frame by tacks. This technique is called eight way hand tied springs after the number of times the twine passes over each spring. Over the top of the springs we usually find a coarsely woven fabric called burlap. On the blog chair the upholsterer used a piece of leftover fabric. This is the surface onto which the padding (curled hair, cotton) can be laid. Over the padding is stretched another piece of lightweight utilitarian fabric.  The decorative fabric would be installed on top of that.

Here is the construction of the Chippendale Plate chair.

                          Illustration by the Author

The seat is upheld by a series of webbing strips stretched across the top of the seat frame. A tightly woven fabric is tacked on top. Over that a layer of curled hair is packed and sometimes hand stitched into place. Finally another piece of utilitarian fabric is stretched over the hairs to further hold them in place and protect the bottom of the sitter from the sometimes itchy hair, which could poke through the final decorative fabric.

As you can see, the springs in the blog chair make the seat area thicker. 

                                   Photo by SHS

They are about 3” high and have padding on top. The seat looks more comfortable to sit on. However, having sat on it myself I discovered the springs provide little comfort at all. They have been compressed to the point of having no response to the weight of the sitter. So even though an upholsterer took the time to web, insert and tie these springs into the seat of my chair, the seat is still hard and uncomfortable.

This leads me to believe the springs were installed in the Victorian era. As Edward S. Cooke Jr. states about early spring use in the 18^th century; “another reason that early spring seats were not very comfortable was that upholsterers had few craft traditions to guide them in this area. They did not know how to overcome the shortcomings of springs or how to use springs to their best advantage.”(9)

Through personal experience I have come upon all manner of poorly installed springs in not only Victorian but contemporary furniture as well.  Their installation is tricky business, and requires a great deal of hand and wrist strength as well as hand-eye coordination.  I truly understand why early upholsterers had a difficult time catching on to this concept.

Today, the use of coil springs in upholstered furniture is the considered the mark of excellence.

Theresa

Yummy Furniture and Design

theresamhs@sbcglobal.net

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9. Cooke, Edward S. Jr., Spring Seats of the 19^th and Early 20^th Centuries, Upholstery in America and Europe from the 17^th C to WWI.,  New York, W.W. Norton & Co. 239